


Gasping for a Breath

by killy0urdarlings



Series: Commitment to Change [1]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Deimos!Alexios - Freeform, Gen, Past Child Abuse, Past Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Trust Issues, everyone is trying so hard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:02:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28071399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killy0urdarlings/pseuds/killy0urdarlings
Summary: Deimos cannot sleep.It’s his fifth night on the Adrestia, his… family is asleep, and he hasn’t even been able to close his eyes.
Relationships: Alexios & Kassandra (Assassin's Creed), Alexios & The Fam, Deimos & Kassandra (Assassin's Creed)
Series: Commitment to Change [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2059971
Comments: 17
Kudos: 21





	Gasping for a Breath

**Author's Note:**

> this was meant to be a oneshot but it got away from me. it MIGHT extend to 3 chapters but we’ll see when we get there 
> 
> warnings: past child abuse, suicidal ideation, dysfunctional eating patterns (not to the point of a disorder), references to past violence, general trauma and instability
> 
> edit: changed the summary!

Deimos cannot sleep.

It’s his fifth night on the Adrestia, his… _family_ is asleep, and he hasn’t even been able to close his eyes.

Sleep has never been a close friend of his. Even as a little child, he’d lie awake in his bed most nights, body strung tight with tension and fear until it finally gave in, allowing him a moment of rest. Fitful rest, plagued by nightmares and panicked bouts of wakefulness, but rest all the same. It’s the most he’s ever gotten.

It’s been worse, these past few nights. He’s surrounded by people now, with nothing to keep them out, no longer in the isolated bedchamber the Cult would lock him in during the nights. He can’t bring himself to take off his armor, too certain that someone’s going to come into his room and drive their blade into his unprotected flesh. A lock on the door had never stopped anyone from coming in and hurting him before, of course, but the Cult had never intended to kill him. 

He’s seen the looks on the crew’s faces when he’s around, the way that Odessa stares when he comes on deck, the way that Gelon’s hand tightens around her blade when she sees him. Even the people who call him family now seem to tiptoe around him. Of all the people who would be able to kill him, anyone among the Adrestia’s crew would have the best luck at it.

So here Deimos sits, on the floor of the captain’s cabin gifted to him by Kassandra, still clad in his gold and white armor. He stares at the wall, mind blurry and numb, eyes bloodshot with exhaustion. He can feel something, tucked somewhere within his mind but desperate to come to the front, pounding at the mental door it sits behind, but whatever it is will have to wait until his mind is no longer so painfully blank.

He doesn’t know when he slips under, when time skips forward, but one second his eyes are slipping shut and the next he’s flinching awake as his door creaks open. He jumps to his feet, baring his teeth, but all he finds is Kassandra, standing frozen and wide-eyed in the doorway.

There was a time, when Deimos was young enough and dumb enough to still have hope, when he’d thought about what it would be like to have his sister. She’d take him for walks, ruffle his hair, scoop him up and press kisses to his forehead when he cried.

_(deimos had cried quite a lot when he was little, but eventually he forgot how to)_

He thought one day he’d meet his sister, and everything would be okay, and she would embrace him and hold his head in her hands and he would be safe, secure. He thought that safety was the only thing he needed, the cure to everything, the one thing he’d someday be given. But standing here, staring at the tension on Kassandra’s face, the watery quality to her stare, he realizes that safety and security are things that he’ll never have.

She looks at him for a long, long moment, her eyes heavy with a sadness Deimos used to find in himself. There’s no trace of the anger that he thinks might run in the family, the anger that bubbles inside him everyday, the anger that he’d seen clouding her face when he’d caught her brooding on deck two days ago. It’s just an old, eternal sadness. Something inside him aches.

“You’re still wearing your armor,” Kassandra says softly, and Deimos snaps.

“Why did you bring me here?” he asks, and the anger - the only safe feeling he has - hooks its claws into him, his face contorting with it. She blinks. “What am I doing here?”

“What?” she asks.

“You chased after me. Even when I was hunting you.” His voice rises, his fists clenching at his sides. “You bring me here, tell me I’m your family, that you’re here for me, that I’m _safe!”_ He’s shouting now. “You _lied_ to me! You don’t trust me! You don’t love me!” He glares at her, eyes dark with hate, hurt. “You are no more my family than you were then!” His mouth twists into a grimace. “Why am I here?!”

“Kassandra.” There’s Odessa, glaring over Kassandra’s shoulder, her bow drawn, the rest of the crew gathering behind her. “What’s going on?” Deimos’s eyes lock onto Odessa’s, his mouth pulling further into a snarl, and he can see the hate reflected in her stare. Kassandra, stunned into a wide-eyed silence, takes a moment to respond. She turns slowly, looks back at the crew. 

“Everything’s fine,” she says, voice tight. “Go back to sleep.”

Odessa pulls her eyes away from Deimos’s, looks at Kassandra. She frowns, face painted with a dark unhappiness. “Myrrine and Nikolaos are on deck with Stentor,” she says slowly. “Do you need them?” The question is clear in her voice: _do we need to get rid of him?_

Deimos _growls,_ and everyone’s eyes jump back to him. “I’m not hurting anyone,” he grinds out, and Odessa lets out a sharp snort.

“Not right now, you aren’t,” she says, voice dripping with a sharp, vicious threat and a reminder of all the pain he’s caused. He bristles, because he _knows_ what he’s done, he knows the destruction he’s left in his path. How dare she look at him like that when he’s _trying,_ how _dare_ she.

“Odessa,” Kassandra says, and this time it’s _her_ voice that’s dangerous. Odessa blinks. “This is a family matter. I have given you an order and you will listen to it. _Go back to sleep.”_

Odessa stares, eyes wide and surprised, taken aback by the anger in Kassandra’s words. She recovers quickly, looking back at Deimos as a sneer tugs at her lips. “Fine,” she says, and lowers her bow. “As you wish.” She steps away, turning her back on them, and leaves without another word. The crew lingers for a moment longer before slowly dispersing, returning to the main sleeping area with hurried looks thrown over their shoulders. 

Kassandra waits for them to disappear from sight before she turns back to Deimos, the anger on her face giving way to sadness once more. She looks so very old. Deimos’s chest is burning. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” she says, voice heavy, and Deimos glares. “I just came to get my journal.” She gestures to the chest tucked into the corner of the cabin.

Deimos stares, face flushed with a raging heat. “Did you hear anything I said?” he spits. He’s shaking and he doesn’t even know why. “Why am I here, Kassandra?”

She looks away, the shadows under her eyes stark and gray. “...I’m tired, Alexios,” she says. 

He tenses so suddenly his muscles shudder. “That’s not my name.”

She sighs, reaching back with both hands to squeeze her neck. She looks at him with distant, glassy eyes. “Please,” she says, voice quiet. “Can this wait until morning?”

He looks at her, rage simmering beneath his skin, but says nothing. His eyes drop to the floor. 

She takes his silence as acceptance. “Thank you,” she says. She stands still for a moment, and then she walks over to the chest, bending down to open it and rummage through it in search of her journal. He looks back up at her, sees her back turned to him. Foolish, really, for her to trust him enough to not even look behind herself. He could kill her so easily, snap her neck just like the Cult showed him how to.

_(how that man’s neck had cracked when they did it)_

He doesn’t kill her. He doesn’t know why.

_(maybe, somewhere deep within him, he still hopes)_

She slams the chest shut, standing up with her journal gripped tight in her hand. She turns around, starting for the door only to stop and look back at him. They hold each other’s gaze for a long time. 

“...Goodnight, Alexios,” she says, and then slips out the door.

He can only stare as the door clicks shut.

)•(

It’s Deimos’s sixth day on the Adrestia, and he knows he’ll never find his peace.

He’s at the edge of the deck, gripping the rail and staring down at the dark blue waves, wondering what it would be like to fling himself from the deck and let the sea swallow him whole. He doesn’t think he will, because he is Deimos and Deimos never gives up,

_(but is he deimos anymore?)_

but the thought remains. And what a tempting thought it is.

He’s broken from his stupor by a cheerful voice.

“Alexios,” Kassandra greets, her usual half-smile plastered on her face, her demeanor completely normal, like the night before never happened. He looks at her, eyes hard, but says nothing. There’s a quick flash of something strange in her eyes, but it clears quickly, and she reaches out to pat him on the shoulder, a little rougher than she probably intends to, but Deimos just clenches his jaw. He knows better than to complain, to think he’s entitled to any sort of kindness. He looks away, out towards the sea. Kassandra’s hand falls from his shoulder.

“Brooding again, I see?” comes Stentor’s voice, and Deimos turns to stare at him. Stentor folds his arms behind his back, watching Deimos closely. His eyes are guarded, wary, his brow furrowed, but there’s no real venom to his voice. 

Before Deimos can bite back, Kassandra is snorting and saying, “I like to think of it as a family trait.”

Stentor’s eyes flick to Kassandra. He doesn’t laugh, or even smile, but his brow smooths out and some of the wariness fades from his eyes. “Spartans don’t brood,” he says simply, and then walks away. Kassandra watches him go, an amused quirk to her lips.

She turns back to Deimos, and a tension he didn’t even realize had been there before returns to her face. Still she doesn’t stop smiling. “I’m starting to actually like him now,” she says, sounding amazed by her own words. She looks away, huffing out a laugh. “Imagine that.”

Deimos says nothing. 

She looks back at him, a line drawn between her brows. “Not feeling very talkative today?” she asks, voice as cheerful as ever, but he doesn’t miss the care she says it with.

The thing is, Deimos has never been talkative. Words mean noise, and noise gets you hurt. So much as too sharp a breath and you’ll regret it.

_(hands around his neck, a loose grip, as iokaste looked at him with a glint in her eye, daring him to make another sound)_

His throat tightens. 

“Alexios?” Kassandra tries, the smile gone now. Deimos is gripping the rail so hard his knuckles are turning white. “Did I say something wrong?” He stares at her. She reaches one hand out, slowly, reaching for his shoulder. “Ale -”

He recoils from her touch, releasing the rail, and she pulls her hand back immediately. She stares at him.

He takes three deep, hard breaths. “That’s not,” he says, “my name.”

She can only watch as he storms away.

)•(

It’s Deimos’s sixth night on the Adrestia, he’s eating in the cabin, and he doesn’t know what to do about Myrrine. 

She’s really only watched him from afar before now, bringing him food with gentle smiles and shrewd eyes, but he’s said nothing to her and she’s said little to him. 

_(comfortable? she had asked on his first night on the ship, and he’d glared at her so hard he could feel his face muscles straining. maybe she found it best to stay away from him after that)_

Tonight is different. Myrrine comes down below deck with a plate heaped full of dried beans and salted meat, a dinner that’s now familiar to him, though he never eats all of it. She smiles at him, handing him the plate, and he takes it without a single word. He expects her to give him that same sad, careful smile she always gives him when she brings him food. 

Instead, she lingers, looking down at him. He doesn’t meet her eyes, his own gaze fixed on his food. He doesn’t want to eat until she leaves, barely wants to eat at all. He hates it when people stare at him, watching him to make sure that he eats no more than he needs, criticizing him when he tries to sneak an extra bite.

_(the perfect warrior needs only enough to survive; don’t be so weak as to overindulge)_

She doesn’t leave. No, she sits down beside him. 

He looks up at her at last, utterly stunned by the break in routine. She smiles at him, carefully, like he’s a cornered animal, and for a moment he can see ghosts in her eyes. The ghost of her innocent, youthful daughter, the ghost of the weak baby boy she once cradled in her arms, the ghost of the happy, fulfilled mother she once was.

Deimos’s throat tightens. 

“You don’t eat very much, lamb,” she says. 

“What.” He doesn’t say it like a question, but she takes it as one anyway.

“You need to eat, Alexios,” she says softly, and he scowls.

“That’s not my name,” he says. 

Her smile flickers for a moment, but she takes it in stride. “You need to eat,” she repeats, “Deimos.”

“No,” he says without thinking, and glares down at his food. Food is not the enemy, never has been, but he needs something to be mad at right now. 

She’s silent for a moment. “Why not?”

He says nothing. 

“Deimos,” Myrrine tries. “I need you to trust me.”

“Why am I here?” he asks, looking up at her. It’s the same question he asked Kassandra, the question he never got an answer to, the question he thinks he’ll be asking for the rest of his life.

She just looks at him, Kassandra’s previous sadness reflected in her eyes. Emotions do run in the family, don’t they? 

After a long, long moment, she says, “We want you here.” 

_“Why?”_ he spits, baring his teeth, glaring at her with vicious eyes, but she doesn’t look away.

“You are my child, Deimos,” she says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, as if he should _know_ that, as if it’s just that fucking easy.

His lip curls. “Your child is dead.”

She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even look away. She just stares at him, eyes serious. “You aren’t lost to me. Not yet.”

“Yes,” he says, “I am.” 

The only sound that follows is his own harsh breathing.

Myrrine finally, _finally_ looks away, pushing herself to her feet and brushing off her dress. “I think I’ve stayed too long.” Her voice is tight, stiff. Still she manages to smile down at him, though it’s shaky. “Please eat, Deimos. Enjoy it.” He doesn’t meet her eyes. With a small sigh, she leaves the cabin. 

Deimos breathes hard, shaking with rage, hurt, terror.

He throws his food at the wall.

)•(

It’s Deimos’s eleventh day on the Adrestia, and, as he watches Kassandra man the helm, he thinks about death.

From the moment he watched the lioness tear his friend apart, from the first time the Cult ever made him think he was dying, from the time the first Sage had slit a man’s throat, Deimos has thought about death.

He’s killed, watched others kill, heard of some just dying in the night for no discernible reason. The Ghost had told him, once, that death was his mistress, his only companion throughout his life, and Deimos wonders when that death will finally embrace him. 

He thinks about it as he watches Kassandra shout orders to her crew. Thinks about the moment on the mountain, when he had tried to goad her into a fight, aiming for either victory or his end. Thinks about the despair that had flooded through him when the spear showed him the truth. Thinks about Myrrine and Kassandra embracing him, the way his skin had felt hungry when they did it. It was the first time in his memory that he’d been touched kindly. He hated it. He wanted more. 

He watches Kassandra as Barnabas launches into song beside her, the crew following along. A grin spreads across her face, her exhilaration clear as she lets out a whoop. Her daggers gleam where they’re strapped to her hip. Deimos wonders what they’d feel like ramming through his heart. 

_Why didn’t you kill me?_ he wants to ask, but it’s too big of a question, too vulnerable. He can’t show the weakness he can feel growing inside of him each day.

He used to be stronger than this.

“Alexios.”

He rips his eyes away from Kassandra, pinning his gaze on Nikolaos instead. He’s standing there, his expression neutral, controlled. There’s no distrust _or_ trust on his face. There’s just nothing at all.

 _Learn to read your opponent,_ the Ghost had told him once, but Deimos can’t read a damned thing on the older man. His skin crawls.

“What?” Deimos asks, on edge immediately. He still remembers what the spear had shown him, remembers the vision of Nikolaos just _letting it happen,_ letting him fall off the cliff and into their clutches. He doesn’t want to be around Nikolaos, doesn’t care to hear his side. He grips the rail, glaring hard at the man he might’ve once called his father.

Nikolaos just watches him, something contemplative in his eyes. “When you were born,” he says slowly, “it was like the sky itself opened up and gave you to me. You were a gift from the gods. The perfect addition to my family.” Deimos bristles, lips pulling into a snarl. Nikolaos doesn’t react, just looks away, a faraway glaze to his eyes. “I believed the Oracle when she said that you had to die. That you would be the downfall of Sparta otherwise. It hurt me, but I believed her.” His stare returns to Deimos. “And for that, I am sorry. I would take it back if the Fates would allow me.”

Deimos’s heart pounds in his chest, heat creeping up the back of his neck as he searches for something to say. No one’s ever apologized to him before. 

He stares at Nikolaos long enough for the crew to finish a second song, and then Kassandra is finally noticing the two of them, her smile dropping into a frown. She passes the wheel off to Barnabas and heads straight for them.

“Nikolaos, Alexios,” she says, coming to a stop in front of them. She glances between them. “What are we talking about?”

And in that moment, Deimos abandons the nerves struck into him by the apology, and resorts to his age-old response to everything; anger.

As Nikolaos opens his mouth to respond, Deimos cuts him off. _“Nothing,”_ he spits, and then whirls around and storms away.

 _“Shit!”_ Kassandra hisses behind him, but Deimos disappears below deck before she can say anything else. 

)•(

It’s the twelfth day, and the Adrestia has finally come to a stop back in Attika.

Deimos doesn’t really know why he leaves the ship. He thinks maybe he just needs to get away, away from Nikolaos and Stentor, away from Myrrine’s watchfulness, away from Kassandra’s constant attempts to get through to him. He just needs a break, a moment of reprieve.

He doesn’t get that, of course, because he’s never gotten it before and there’s no reason to believe he ever will. 

Barnabas finds him in the market. “Deimos,” he greets, and Deimos can feel his entire body cringe. He turns to Barnabas, and his grimace is apparently still noticeable judging by the way Barnabas winces. The older man, after a moment of hesitation, pats Deimos on the shoulder. Deimos tenses under the touch. Barnabas offers an awkward smile. “Kassandra was wondering where you’d gone.”

“Of course she was,” Deimos says flatly, turning his attention to the people milling around him. He takes note of the ones with visible weapons attached to them, keeps his hand near his own blade in case anyone tries anything. He knows better than to trust these people.

Barnabas falls silent at his response, for long enough that Deimos could almost forget his presence. He carries on through the market, scanning the crowd carefully, glancing behind himself every few moments to find Barnabas still following him. He grinds his teeth but says nothing. If he stays quiet, maybe the other man will get the point and leave. 

That plan, he finds out, does not work.

It’s when Deimos stops to look at a stall packed with oils and herbs that Barnabas speaks again. “She’s trying, you know.”

Deimos lets out a slow breath and turns to Barnabas, mouth etched in his eternal frown. “What.”

“Kassandra,” Barnabas says. “She’s trying.”

Deimos stares. “Your point being?”

Barnabas sighs. “Give her a chance, Deimos. She’s trying to hold you all together, but she can’t do that when you keep pushing her away.”

Deimos scowls at that, crossing his arms with a snort. “She doesn’t need to hold me together.”

“You don’t understand.”

Deimos’s nails dig into his own arms. “Oh? And what don’t I understand?”

“I've never seen her look as desperate as she did when she found out you were alive.” Barnabas looks up at him, face open, imploring. “All she’s wanted is her family, and now that she has you, she can’t even talk to you.”

“She doesn’t need to talk to me,” Deimos says, resolute, and Barnabas sighs once more.

“You don’t have to listen to me, Deimos, but just know that she cares about you.”

“Right,” Deimos says, looking away to scan the stalls once more. “Like I would believe -” His sentence stutters to a stop as it catches his eye; a bracelet, shiny and golden, designed to look like a snake coiling around the wearer’s wrist. Deimos can feel his jaw clench with how badly the _want_ hits him.

“Deimos?” Barnabas peers around him, searching for whatever cut him off, and finds the bracelet immediately. “Oh,” he says, and then laughs. “Do you want that?”

“No,” Deimos says, because he doesn’t want things. He doesn’t _need_ things. Not something so trivial as a bracelet, anyway. Bracelets are meant to be a show of luxury and beauty, and Deimos has neither. No, he doesn’t want it. He can’t want it.

But Barnabas just raises a brow. “If you say so,” he says, but he walks towards the stall anyway, an action that Deimos doesn’t even register for a moment. “Hello!” Barnabas greets, and the woman in the stall smiles at him. Deimos watches, stunned, as Barnabas passes drachmae to the woman and grabs the bracelet. He marches back to Deimos. Deimos stares at him. “I say otherwise.” Barnabas holds the bracelet out to him. Deimos watches as it flashes in the light. He has no idea how to feel.

After a moment, in which Barnabas looks at him expectantly, Deimos slowly reaches up and takes the bracelet. He stares down at it, turning it over in his hands. He looks back up at Barnabas. “...I don’t have drachmae,” he says, lips numb.

Barnabas just waves his hand. “Consider it a gift,” he says easily, a smile breaking out on his face. “To a new friend.” He swiftly pats Deimos on the shoulder before starting off again, pausing for only a moment to look back at him and say, “Just… consider what I said.” And then he departs, leaving Deimos to stare blankly at the bracelet.

He can see the questions in Kassandra’s eyes when he returns to the ship with the bracelet clasped around his wrist. She’s watching him, looking between his face and the bracelet, her lips parted with surprise. 

Deimos offers no explanation, just takes his place at the edge of the deck and stares at the gold on his wrist.

**Author's Note:**

> deimos would like shiny things and i stand by that


End file.
